MY ELDER KINSMEN UNLIVING
When a thing may
or may not be
real, you sense
it as a half-
presence, a source,
a back-story
you’ve hidden, thrown
into the trough
between two waves.
Now monsters crawl
to you, stalk you,
leave the bogs and
meres for you. A
whole line died to
kill you, but you’re
here still. And yet
you can’t break a-
way. You are full
of dark matter.
That comes from your
fathers, mothers,
your brothers, your
unnamed sister.
Think about what
haunts you, think of
the waves, the meres,
the monster-strewn
shores of somewhere
else, and then ask
again what haunts.
Rebecca Farivar's poems have been published in Denver Quarterly, Octopus, 6X6,
Parcel, cold-drill, and elsewhere. Octopus Books will publish her first full-length collection
of poems in 2011 and her chapbook American Lit (Dancing Girl Press) is also due out this
year. A California native, she holds an MFA in poetry from St. Mary's College of California
and currently lives in Bonn, Germany.
